We got hold of Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas following ESC Gaming's defeat to Ninjas in Pyjamas and discussed with the Polish veteran his team's campaign at Mad Catz.

After coming out on top of the SLTV StarLadder and the CS:GO tournament at IEM Poland, ESC Gaming were denied entry into the Mad Catz final after losing to NiP on two maps (16-8 de_dust2_se, 16-12 de_inferno_se).

The Polish side were then inflicted more misery in the bronze final, this time by VeryGames, as a 2-1 defeat at the hands of the French team saw them finish outside the bubble.

In this 11-minute long interview, Wojtas talks about the defeats to NiP and n!faculty, the players' obsession with stats against weaker sides and the difference between the way the team play on LAN and online. He also comments on NiP's dominance in the CS:GO scene, stating that it is "killing the game".

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I think that the face that ESC are putting themselves down this much after a loss is one of the things that's making them such a great team. They play with such a great emotional engagement and almost gets destroyed after losing, but they are always coming back stronger.

Just look at the time in CS 1.6 when they were without a sponsor after showing poor results. They never even considered of being like the other teams that either retired or started to switching players - they just kept on going and became even stronger in the end, and out shined the SK "dreamteam" in 2011.

I have a great respect for ESC and TaZ and I really hope and think that they won't give up and will reach the top in a near future, good luck!

That's why I'm most attached to them and it's something that goes beyond being of Polish descent. I like teams that play with passion, the antithesis of which is basically the cold, cocky confidence of NiP (or at least get_right).

I really like TaZ hes such an humble person, by far my favorite player. But i have to disagree with him saying NiP is killing the game. The other teams beeing totally uncapable of beating NiP is "killing" the game, not NiP for beeing to good for their competition.

Actually the teams should be even more motivated with NiP's dominance. Its always more motivating to aim to beat the dominant team imo. For the viewer point of view i mean.. all it matters to me at least is to watch some really good games, and NiP winning everything doesnt change that much since the games are becoming more and more challenging and the skill-level is rising alot.

Koreans did destroy the SC2 scene for viewers, atleast they did for me.

I loved watching sc2 even watched the GOMTV matches which is mostly korean only, but watching SC2 now is so predicteble its no longer fun.

You look at the brackets/groups at the start of a tournament en only look for Korean players, then u go up the bracket and so u can see where other players will find their downfall since they wont beat the Korean players. With the final ending up in Korean player 1 vs korean player 2.
But atleast there is competition between the Koreans.

The same thing now applies to CS:GO, at the start of the tournament u look at NIP, u look trough the bracket and already know where your favorite team will have to face nip. Since u also know they will lose the game there is no reason beeing excited, get your hopes up or even pray for a upset. This makes CSGO predictible and boring.

Is this NIP's fault? Offcourse not noone want to see them play worse or start throwing games, but their dominant position is not good for a community that is trying to climb back into E-sports as a Top Teer game.

Right now the entire First Person Shooter scene is loosing more and more ground comparing it to games like LoL, SC2, or even Dota2.

With a Million dollar tournament coming up for COD, new titles like shootmania, the CS scene cant have a boring competition, because the competitive scene is the only unique selling point CS has in the FPS scene.

Nice interview as always, I think that this tournament actually wasn't that bad as the matches were kinda close and with more hours they can secure the victories OR neo could start being neo and then all problems solved. Honestly though i don't think neo will reach the 1.6 level he had, imo what made neo so good in 1.6 was his movement and in GO that just dosn't play a role.

TaZ is a honest and very emotional guy. Got passion for this game and always wants the best for his team. Big respect to him and good luck in the future. You guys can do serious damage to every team out there!